City Council to hold public hearing Feb. 20

What: Boulder City Council public hearing on the future of the Chautauqua Access Management Plan

When: 6 p.m. on Feb. 20

Where: Boulder Municipal Building, 1777 Broadway

More info: The meeting will be broadcast live on television and online by Boulder Channel 8.

After testing out paid parking and free shuttles for the first time at crowded Chautauqua Park last summer, Boulder is primed to extend the program into the future.

The City Council earlier this week approved, on first reading, an ordinance that proposes to keep the program — referred to by city staff as the Chautauqua Access Management Plan, or CAMP — for the next five years, at a total projected cost of a just over $1 million.

But that approval came without any deliberation or public input, as is generally the case when ordinances reach the council for the first time. A full public hearing is scheduled for Feb. 20, at which point the council could decide to adopt staff's recommendation, adopt a variation on the recommendation or kick the matter to a third reading.

On weekends between June and August, Boulder charged people to park at Chautauqua and on certain streets nearby. They were charged at a rate of $2.50 per hour, which is double the rate charged in other public spaces throughout the city.

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The paid parking deterred some drivers from visiting the area, which was a significant goal of the pilot. There were 50 fewer cars reported in the area of the park per hour, per day, when the pilot was in effect, according to city staff.

Charging people to park also brought in revenue for the city, as nearly 1,300 people were ticketed during the 2017 pilot. City staff's latest recommendation estimates about $775,000 in revenue for the city over the next five years, which would offset most of CAMP's projected cost.

Nathan Payne walks his dog, Knox, and his goat, Fedor, on the Chautauqua Trailhead on Thursday in Boulder. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

During the pilot period, Boulder also ran free shuttles from various satellite lots up to Chautauqua. An average of 900 people rode those shuttles daily.

All of this, the council agreed, constituted a "great success."

The 2018-2022 program city staff is proposing looks much the same as the 2017 pilot, though the staff recommendation does contain some notable changes, including:

• The program would run for 15 weekends a year (previously 13 weekends)

• Residents in affected zones would be charged as part of the Neighborhood Parking Permit program, at a price to be determined (previously residents got free permits)

• Expanded access at certain hours to free and subsidized rides to and from Chautauqua on rideshare services such as Lyft and Uber

After the 2017 pilot wrapped up, feedback from neighbors, various Boulder boards and commissions and from the Colorado Chautauqua Association was generally positive.

But there are many concerned neighbors who feel the shuttles to Chautauqua introduced too much traffic, noise and air pollution — particularly along the Ninth Street route. Buses also ran up Baseline Road, though that route drew many fewer complaints.

Fifty-six different people recently signed a petition asking for mitigation of Ninth Street issues under future versions of CAMP.

"Ninth has become very full of traffic," said one of the petition signers, Virginia Boucher, 88. "I've lived here many, many years and it used to be easier to drive here and it isn't any more.

"There are lots of people and I know they want to enjoy Chautauqua, and they have to get there somehow ... but you need to find another place to pick them up and not run them up Ninth so much."

She did add, however, that she and other neighbors felt comfortable with other aspects of the pilot. The petition centered almost exclusively on concerns with bus routes.

The City Council's consideration of a CAMP extension comes as Boulder begins work on what will be a lengthy process of drafting a master plan for the future of the city's vaunted Open Space and Mountain Parks program.

Among many key questions the master plan process will tackle are those concerning what Boulder can and should do to address crowding issues at other popular open space sites that may now or in the future be burdened with the same parking scarcity and access concerns that plagued Chautauqua and prompted the pilot.

By far, Chautauqua is the most popular location in the 45,000-acre Open Space and Mountains Parks system, according to a 2016 survey. But other spots — such as Mount Sanitas, Wonderland Lake and Shanahan Ridge — may require CAMP-esque attention in years to come.

Phil Yates, a spokesman with Open Space and Mountain Parks, said that the department is going to publish a study in the second quarter of this year that will break down visitation numbers and access issues throughout Boulder's open space system.

That study, he said, is based on data collected from open space visitors, and it will inform discussions about access management beyond Chautauqua.

"We'll estimate the total number of visits, where visits occur and what type of activities visitors are engaged in," he said. "The study will also explore how people arrived at trailheads — by foot, bike, bus or car — and if people arrived by car, we also asked them how difficult it was to park."

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